Influential lobbying groups for doctors and hospitals, a health insurer, technology companies, and representatives from state governments met behind closed doors in Washington, D.C., in early October to develop guidelines for how to regulate artificial intelligence in the practice of medicine.
Executives from the American Medical Association, American Hospital Association, artificial intelligence giant Anthropic, and insurer Elevance Health are part of a 22 member AI workgroup convened by the Federation of State Medical Boards, or FSMB, a national organization that advocates for state boards. A spokesman said the workgroup “was built to balance expertise across medical regulation, AI development, care delivery, academic medicine, state AI policy, and patient safety,” and that its recommendations would be open for feedback before being formally adopted.
The discussions within workgroup meetings are being kept confidential, but the goal is to draft guidelines to aid local medical boards, with “particular attention … to AI tools that perform clinical functions with limited or no direct physician supervision,” Humayun Chaudhry, the FSMB’s president and CEO, told STAT. A draft of the recommendations could be made public in “weeks to months,” said Chaudhry. They could ultimately form the basis of legislation in states, which individually regulate medical licensure and the practice of medicine.